Taking photos of your guitars (black background technique)

PVO_Dave

Decided to create a 'rig' for taking photos of my guitars, thought it would be good to have uniform professional looking pictures of each one for insurance purposes if nothing else. 

Wanted to keep it nice and simple, the house we are in at the moment has a half converted garage (it's a room, but the walls aren't plastered etc..) and the previous tenants had fitted a cheapo looking guitar hanger, the only thing going for it was that it's black, it was way too high up though, likely to get headstock damage trying to put a guitar in there and it'd have meant extending the camera tripod very high.

The background is from Wilkinson, it's a fablon type material (self adhesive), but with a 'velvet' finish, I bought two rolls at £5 each. I drilled new holes for the guitar hanger, applied the black material over the top, refitted the guitar hanger, leaving enough room at the top and going far enough down so I could photograph my Jazz Bass too, I also applied some material to the sides where the guitar body would hang as the fit for my Midtown Custom was very tight. I then covered the screw holes, including the plastic body of the hanger and the hanger prongs themselves.

The camera was on a tripod, set for a long exposure.

Here's a picture of the setup before any editing (slight tweaks to levels etc..)

In photoshop, I cropped it, created a pure black background layer, deleted all the background I didn't want in the picture (the brickwork etc..) then used levels to work out what part of the black background needed darkening. A few more post processing tweaks later (including rotating the image) and here's two of my guitars, I'll get round to doing the rest soon.

Hopefully the above might be useful to someone wanting to take some pictures of their guitars, if you want any more detail about any of the above, let me know

Dave.

koneguitarist

Nice pics

MrSwanson

That PRS is well gorge!!

blueskunk

Excellent stuff

JohnPerry

Useful that, Dave. I am in the process of doing the same. How did you lose the black of the hanger encroaching on the headstock binding in the first pic?

PVO_Dave

JohnPerry said:

Useful that, Dave. I am in the process of doing the same. How did you lose the black of the hanger encroaching on the headstock binding in the first pic?

Hi John,

I cheated a bit.. when editing the photo, I used the sampler tool to get the colour of the binding, used the shape tool to drawer a straight line near the area, then used free transform to warp the line to the correct shape, then used the smudge tool to blend it in.

For the PRS I chopped off the bulky bit of the guitar hanger so there was less to edit away after - The next ones should be easier now.

Dave.

PVO_Dave

Finished taking photos now of the guitars I'm keeping (2x Strats up for sale), all worked well aside from the Custom, I guess the slightly different neck angle pulled the guitar back a bit, hence the different look. I'll have another try tomorrow when I take some new pics of the Strats I have for sale

Dave.

not_the_dj

Excellent results. Proper "catalogue" shots.

FelineGuitars

Nice - good results too!

I should maybe try something like that 

The first two below were taken laying on a table on some faux leather

The thrird is hanging from a guitar hander like you did, but without hiding the hanger as well as you have, so I'm just showing a body shot

PVO_Dave

Great shots (lovely guitar too!), looks like you've done a bit better on reflections

meltedbuzzbox

this thread needs some single coil action

FelineGuitars

Only slightly single coil-ish (TV Jones in neck)

TTony

FelineGuitars said:

You could sell guitars like that.

thermionic

Very good. Should pay dividends if you're selling.

What happens if you have a black guitar though?

richardhomer

thermionic;255011" said:

What happens if you have a black guitar though?

Probably need to draw round it with chalk - like where a body is found at a crime scene....

PVO_Dave

thermionic said:

Very good. Should pay dividends if you're selling.

What happens if you have a black guitar though?

The black of the guitar should be different enough to seperate it from the background

UnclePsychosis

Looks good.

Also, if you're taking photos with an eye to insurance, make sure you have a few shots of you and each guitar together. Just in case the insurers demand proof that you ever actually had them.

Phil_aka_Pip

@PVO_Dave Good work, Sir!

kelvinburn

@PVO_Dave nice collection Sir and lovely pics

close2u

UnclePsychosis said:

Looks good.

Also, if you're taking photos with an eye to insurance, make sure you have a few shots of you and each guitar together. Just in case the insurers demand proof that you ever actually had them.

For real?
They would insist on that?

richardhomer

close2u;255176" said:

For real?

They would insist on that?

I had a Cartier watch stolen some years ago. The loss adjuster wanted evidence I'd owned it.

Fortunately I'd kept the instruction manual separate from the watch and it's box (the box was taken as well) and this was sufficient to them to pay out.

Things like the final inspection tag on a PRS would probably suffice. To be fair, the date the photo was taken could be evidence also.

I'd rather err on the side of too much proof, incase the unthinkable should happen.

Incidentally, the burglars who took my watch left an American Vintage Reissue '62 Strat which was on a stand and my genuine '63 Fiesta Red Strat which was in its case under the bed! That said, this was a long time ago. I suppose now they'd Google the item off their phone if unsure as to whether it's worth nicking....